Coleman Hawkins Remembers Jimmy Harrison and Jack Teagarden

In 1956, Coleman Hawkins was interviewed by Bill Grauer and Paul Bacon for Riverside Records. At one point, Hawkins recalls a period — about April, 1928, it turns out — that he played at the Roseland Ballroom with Jimmy Harrison, a trombonist and fellow member of Fletcher Henderson’s band. Hawkins and Jimmy already shared a kidding, bantering friendship, and soon, the arrival of Jack Tegarden at the Roseland would give Hawkins another thing to tease Harrison about:

Below is a transcription of this portion of the Hawkin’s interview done by writer Richard Hadlock in the 60s. Hadlock tries to contain some of Coleman’s valuable digressions, but it’s mostly accurate. I recommend listening, of course.

“I’d heard about this Teagarden . . . Jimmy and all the rest of them were down­stairs, or I don’t even know if they were in yet. I heard him playin’, so I went downstairs to get Jimmy and the fellows to start kidding about it. I says, “Man, there’s a boy upstairs that plays an awful lot of trombone.” “Yeah, who’s that, Hawk?” I says, “He’s a boy from New Orleans or Texas or somethin. I don’t know. What do they call him? Jack Teagarden or somethin’. Jimmy do you know him?” “No, I’m not gonna know him . . . trombone player, ain’t he? Plays like the rest of the trombones, that’s all. I don’t see no trombones. I say the trombone is a brass instrument; it should have a sound just like a trumpet. I don’t want to hear trombone sound like a trombone. I can’t see it. I said, “Jimmy, he doesn’t sound like those trombones. He plays up high; sounds a lot like a trumpet, too.” He says, “Oh, man, I ain’t paying no mind.” Jimmy and Jack got to be the tightest of friends. After this night, I couldn’t separate Jimmy and Jack Teagarden. So we used to come up to my house practically every night . . . I don’t know how they made it, because we’d sit up there and fool around ‘til two, three, four o’clock in the afternoon–no sleep. And we were working every night. We used to go there and eat these cold cuts, cheese and crackers and stuff, and we’d do this and play–playin’ all night. Jimmy and Jack both jivin’ each other . . . trying to figure out what he lacks so he can get from the other one . . . and I dug what was going on . . . I had the piano, and they could play all night. It didn’t disturb anybody or nothin’. The house was all draped and carpeted . . . Both of them got their trombones, and I played pi­ano for them. This used to go on all night long, listening to records and eating and talking and back to playing again–every night. You couldn’t keep Jack out of Harlem . . . He made every rent party . . . Jack made himself right at home. And always had that horn. He must have never slept, playing horn night and day. But that was a funny experience when Jack came up, ‘cause Jimmy never heard anyone play trombone like that.”

Jack Teagarden Documentary

The documentary has been on YouTube since late 2021, and recounts the story of one the most universally revered and beloved jazz musicians, Jack Teagarden. Importantly, this documentary work on Big Tea — now so easily and freely available — would absolutely not exist without the work of the late Joe Showler*, the Canadian record collector who exhaustively documented nearly every day of Teagarden’s career.

Related links here at Commander Trombone:

**In the middle 90s, when I was working on a master’s thesis paper on Jack Teagarden, Joe Showler was of extremely kind (and indispensable) help.

Jack Teagarden High Tone Studies

High Tone Studies for Trombone

Almost any English teacher can be counted on to make some sort of a handout on when to use a comma. It’s sort of that same way with brass players and exercise books, going back — at least — to Arbans famous method.

Both comma handouts and brass exercise books have this in common: despite some points of controversy, you end up with lots of similar material and advice. And yet, despite all that, there’s still the occasional insight and innovation.

In 1936, Jack Teagarden, the jazz trombonist from Vernon, Texas, known for his ability to play a whole lot of trombone in the first 4 positions, came out with his High Tone Studies for Trombone, a short treatise of 51 exercises designed to help get the player up to a high D. The book is currently available on Apple’s iBooks, and also at Cherry Classics Music. As CCM’s blurb says, “it is obvious that Teagarden had put a lot of thought into his technique.” A bit of classic good advice from the book:

Do not force or strain at any time. Rest frequently.

Jack Teagarden Tours the Near East in 1958

In October of 1958, Jack Teagarden and his working band undertook a tour of the near east for the U.S. State Department. The trip covered eighteen countries and 17,000 miles, winding up in January of 1959. The King of Thailand, himself a saxophonist and composer, was happy to see Teagarden, someone whose music he had only enjoyed on recordings up until that time. Naturally, the King decreed a jam session at his palace — it went on for 6 hours by Teagarden’s own account. “You tell your friend Eisenhower that you’re the finest thing he’s ever sent us,” the King said.

Of one concert stop, Teagarden later remembered:

“We played a kind of fair in Laos before about two thousand people, and they just stood there for two hours, with their arms folded, the women with babies on their backs. They didn’t clap, they didn’t say anything. But they didn’t move, either. They stayed until the last note.”

It was a taxing tour for the musicians involved. Because of the ambassadorial mission, the band had to be available for unscheduled concerts and performances, which added to the expected fatigue. In Afghanistan, there was a scarcity of pianos. Most of the band’s members got the flu. Jack’s bassist, Stan Puls, got appendicitis and had to be taken off the itinerary. He was replaced by Lee Ivory, a very capable bassist as well as an active duty serviceman (and apparently a reporter for Stars and Stripes).

In the amazing kinescope shown here, we pick up the band near the end of its tour in Japan. Teagarden looks gaunt — he had contracted uremia during this leg — but is otherwise in good musical form, as he always seemed to be. This TV-film is incomplete — some of the reels were apparently loaned out and never returned. A Japanese band plays and grapples (well) with the style that Teagarden and company tossed off without seeming to try. Jack performs with a studio orchestra next; included are Stars Fell on Alabama, Diane, Peg O’ My Heart, and Indiana. This studio orchestra format was becoming more common in Jack’s later recordings for Capitol Records. The working band returns for When the Saints Go Marching In.

Jack Teagarden’s working band, shown in the film:

  • Max Kaminsky, trumpet
  • Jerry Fuller, clarinet
  • Don Ewell, piano
  • Lee Ivory, bass
  • Ronnie Greb, drums

In July of 1959, Jack recorded the King of Thailand’s tune, When for Roulette Records.

Teagarden later said of the trip’s mission, “All the music I’ve played has finally paid off. I feel that I did some good for America.”